


i'm scone on you

by snufflyphoenix



Category: Borderlands
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Meet-Cute, this was based off a prompt but it ended up being way longer than I thought it would
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-01
Updated: 2016-08-01
Packaged: 2018-07-28 14:10:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7643971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snufflyphoenix/pseuds/snufflyphoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based off a tumblr prompt - Lilith/Roland for "there’s an overnight IT person at school who always answers the phone when i call about a problem with my computer and i totally have a crush on their voice and their exasperation and ALSO the bakery down the street is always running out of my fave scones and the adorable person behind the counter can’t hide their amusement and i think it’s super rude but also super cute AU" :D</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'm scone on you

**Author's Note:**

> This is a prompt arachnistar left me on tumblr that ended up being a whole thing, and I might write more in this universe if people like it! Also big thanks to Cai for telling me how to fix computer problems so it looks like Roland knows what he's doing <3

“IT, Roland speaking, what’s up?” 

“Hi, yeah, my laptop’s doing the thing again.” Lilith’s voice was resigned as she slumped back in her chair. She really didn’t need this right now. She had an assignment due in tomorrow and she really really didn’t want to trek across campus to the library at two in the morning to get this done. 

“Slow Laptop Girl! A pleasure as always.” His voice suddenly sounded far more enthusiastic. “What did you do this time?” 

“I wish I could tell you.” Lilith dragged a hand across her face, glancing at the clock on the shelf above her desk. “Apparently attempting to edit a Google Doc does it now. I swear, it was fine two minutes ago, and now it’s just frozen and won’t move on from trying to refresh the page, but it won’t respond when I try to close the browser, and you have to help me. I’ve tried killing it at task manager, but it’s not doing anything.”

“Deadline?” His voice was sympathetic, something Lilith appreciated. More often than not, people on the end of the phone at this time in the morning sounded half asleep or like they couldn’t care less. Of course, she didn’t blame them, working the night shift was always hell, but a comforting voice was always nice to hear when she’d been on the edge of exploding from stress before calling. She’d spoken to this guy several times while phoning IT, which was a depressingly common occurrence, and every time he’d been friendly and helpful, even when her laptop was doing it’s damndest to make his life hard. He laughed at the dumb jokes she made when she was stressed, and he’d always stay on the line until he was sure everything was okay. He was sweet.

“How could you tell?” She sighed heavily, staring at the screen of her laptop which was still on the same screen. “Any suggestions?”

“I mean, get a new laptop.” Roland sounded mildly amused. “You call with some problem with it every other day.” He paused. “Not that you calling is a problem. You should call as much as you want. Telling you to get a new laptop was mainly a joke. Um.” He sounded flustered, and there was some loud somewhat muffled laughter in the background, which only got louder when he hissed at the person laughing to ‘Shut up, Mordecai.’. “Um, sorry.”

Okay, so maybe Lilith was flushing a little at Roland’s stammering. Calm down, Lil, he’s just a guy doing his job. He didn’t mean anything by telling you to phone as often as you need. That’s what he does, he’s the IT guy. “Don’t worry about it, I need you a lot. Your help! I, um, your help is useful.” Smooth, Lilith. “My laptop’s on it’s last legs, I’m just trying to keep it going as long as possible.”

An indistinct noise came from the other end of the phone, Lilith couldn’t tell if someone was coughing or if someone dropped something. “Hello?” She asked, a little confused.

“Hi, sorry, choked on my gum.” And there was that loud background laugh again. “So, um, what’s the physical memory percentage on your task manager?”

Lilith took a glance at her laptop screen. “96%.”

“96? Okay, so go into performance monitor-”

Another voice joined the call. “Have you tried turnin’ it off and on again?” He sounded like he was finding this all incredibly entertaining.

“I-” Lilith started, only to be cut off.

“Mordecai, get off the line!” Roland glared at his colleague across the room, who put the phone down again with a smirk. 

“Just tryin’ to help, amigo.” Mordecai sat back in his chair, only faintly audible to Lilith over the phone now. “Why haven’t you asked her out yet, by the way-”

“Okay!” Roland said loudly, hoping Lilith hadn’t heard that. “So go into performance monitor and find the process with the highest working memory, then from there you’ll be able to find out what service is causing the problem. Right click process and then hit show services, and then you can disable each service to see what’s causing the problem. Or I could just save you time and tell you it’ll be the update manager. It’s always that one.”

Lilith frowned at her laptop, tucking her phone under her ear. “Okay, um, I got up to performance monitor, can you repeat that?”

“Right, sorry, so then right click on the process with the highest working memory.”

And a few minutes later, Lilith’s laptop is running at a close to normal speed and were Roland here she would probably kiss him. “Thank you, have I ever told you you’re pretty great at your job?” She grinned happily at her now working laptop.

“You, uh, may have mentioned that once or twice.” Roland’s smile was obvious in his voice, not diminished by the balled up post-it Mordecai threw at his head. “Have a good evening- well, morning.”

She laughed. “You too. Thanks again. Bye!”

And across campus, Roland hung up the phone to meet Mordecai’s eyes.

“What?” He asked, somewhat defensively.

“You are so fucked.” Mordecai grinned, throwing another post-it at him.

And he was right. Roland was so fucked.  
_________________________

“Lil, you really need a new laptop.” Brick couldn’t help but laugh as she retold the story, shaking their head at their friend. They’d heard countless stories over recent months about this guy from IT, and at this point they thought Lilith was hanging onto her shitty broken laptop just to have an excuse to phone and chat to him. 

“Yeah, okay.” Lilith rolled her eyes, hitching her backpack higher on her shoulder as they walked down the road. She’d had an awful night, overall. With Roland’s help to get her computer going again, she’d finished her paper in time, just about, and had had about twenty minutes of shut eye before having to get up to go to class. Speaking to Roland had been a high point, but she had come to the conclusion that she really did need to get a new computer and that was a whole thing. She didn’t like replacing technology, it always felt like giving up part of her and this laptop had been with her since her undergrad. Still, she knew a defeat when she saw one. “Let’s just go to Janey’s, if I don’t get a scone right now I might kill someone.”

And Brick wasn’t entirely sure whether or not she was joking.

Approaching the shop door, Brick knew something wasn’t right. Looking through the window, they could see that the spot which usually held the scones Lilith so desperately needed was empty. Lord have mercy on the poor soul Lilith’s rage fell on. 

“No. No, no, no, no no!” Lilith exclaimed as the two of them entered the shop. She would later blame her dramatic entrance on her having been awake for over 24 hours but Brick wasn’t convinced. She rounded on the cashier, fire in her eyes. “You’ve run out of scones?! How can you have run out, it’s half three!”

The cashier blinked at Lilith, casting a helpless glance at Brick who was standing just behind her, looking as perplexed as he felt. “I-I’m sorry, but they’re very popular, they’re one of our best selling items. There’ll be some more out in an hour..?” 

“I can’t wait an hour, I was up all night, I need sleep! Please, do you not have any in the back or something? I need this.” Lilith tried to plead with the cashier as she grew more desperate. The thing that had been keeping her going all night was the promise of a scone after getting her paper done, and now she was on the edge of crying over baked goods.

“I really don’t think we do, I’m sorry-” 

“If they’re your most popular item, why don’t you have more?!” 

Brick blinked at Lilith, who was almost yelling at the guy behind the register at this point and red in the face, and they put a hand on Lilith’s shoulder. “Lil, it’s a scone. We can get scones somewhere else.” 

“I don’t want scones from somewhere else, this place does the best scones, and I’ve been up all night, and all I wanted was a scone and--”

“Can I help you?” 

Lilith turned to the source of the new, somewhat familiar voice, blinking at the man in the doorway to the back room. Thrown off her tirade a little by this new appearance, she tried again. “There’s no scones, and I just don’t understand how-.. What’s so funny?” She said indignantly as the man was clearly trying not to laugh at her.

Attempting to hide his grin, and failing miserably, the man spoke. “Sorry, I’m really sorry, but your face and your hair are the same colour.”

Lilith only flushed darker at that, gaping slightly at him. “Excuse me? I’m sorry..” and she trailed off, looking at his name tag, “Roland, but-” 

And then it hit her. That was why the voice was so familiar, it had to be. It had to be the same guy who helped her with her shitty computer. The guy she may or may not have had an enormous crush on since she first started calling the overnight IT helpline. “...do you happen to know anything about computers?” 

Roland blinked at her, realisation dawning on his own face as he recognised her voice. “...Slow Laptop Girl?”

“Hi!” Oh, God, Lilith, you’ve just yelled at another shop employee about there being no scones in front of him. Smooth. “Um, it’s Lilith. If you wanted to know. Which you probably didn’t because I’m yelling in the shop you work at. ...yep.”

“Right. Lilith.” He corrected himself, looking between her, the cashier and Brick trying to assess the situation. “...Rhys is right, though, we really don’t have any scones left.”

Lilith wanted the ground to swallow her up. “It’s fine, don’t worry, I… may have been a bit too aggressive.”

Brick couldn’t help but snort at this. “Lil, any amount of aggressive is too aggressive for scones.” This whole situation was ridiculous. Of course the guy who Lilith was crushing on would work in the place her sleep deprivation finally pushed her over the edge. May as well take advantage of it. “Look, Roland, Lilith is runnin’ on no sleep for the last 30 hours but I promise she isn’t always so passionate about a shortage of baked goods.”  
“As long as she’s not usually terrorising shop workers, being passionate about baked goods is fine.” Roland smiled slightly at Lilith, who just blinked at him. Why was he being so nice to her after what she’d just pulled?

“And from what she’s said about your phone conversations, I’m pretty sure she’d want me to ask you if you’d want to go out with her some time.” Brick grinned, ignoring Lilith’s horrified expression.

“Brick, what the hell?!” She exclaimed, staring at her friend. 

Brick shrugged, looking at her. “It works in movies.”

“Yeah, in movies! Not in real life! I sounded unhinged not two minutes ago yelling about scones, he’s hardly going to--” 

“Okay.”

Lilith blinked at Roland. “What?”

Roland smiled at her, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “I said okay.”

She blinked again. “...really? I just threw a tantrum in a shop at 3:30 in the afternoon on a Thursday.”

He shrugged slightly. “And we’ve had hour long phone conversations about Firefly after I’ve helped you sort your laptop out. Also, those were my scones you were yelling about which I guess is a compliment, even if you scared the shit out of Rhys.”

“I.. okay.” She smiled slightly in return. “I’ll give you my number, hang on.”

As she went over to Roland to exchange phone numbers, Brick went to wait by the door. They grinned as they watched the scene - Rhys retreating into the backroom with a shell-shocked expression and Lilith and Roland making somewhat shy but happy conversation. Lilith walked back over to them, with a smile over her shoulder at Roland as he went to go check on Rhys. She raised an eyebrow when she saw their expression.

“Don’t even say it.” She said sternly, giving them A Look.

Brick held their hands up defensively, but couldn’t wipe the grin from their face. “Wouldn’t dream of it, Lil. … But am I the greatest, or am I the greatest?”

She rolled her eyes fondly and shoved them, before opening the door. “Come on, let’s go. Before you embarrass me again.”

“Or score you another date.” 

“Shut up!”

“Never. … Lily?”

“What?” 

“You’re so fucked.”

**Author's Note:**

> (also I promise the final chapter of til we close our eyes for good will be up as soon as possible, just been having trouble with this final chapter and lots of stuff has happened)


End file.
